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THE 


WITH  MEMORIAL   WOEDS  RESPECTING 
HENRY  NORMAN,  HUDSON 


ADDRESS 


DELIVERED   BEFORE  THE  ALUMNI   OF  MIDDLEBURY 
COLLEGE  BY  J.  E.  RANKIN,  D.  D. 


MIDDLEBURY,  VERMONT 
1886. 


EXCHANGE 


OEompang,  printers, 

MIDDLEBURY,  VT. 


ADDRESS: 


EVERY  creator  needs  an  interpreter.  Indeed, 
the  difference  between  a  creation  and  a  com- 
modity ;  between  a  thing  that  is  born  and  a  thing  that 
is  manufactured,  lies  right  here  :  the  first  can  be  in- 
terpreted, its  clew  can  be  found,  its  fundamental  prin- 
ciple can  be  reached ;  you  can  cut  through  into  its 
germ,  and  show  it  in  embryo,  the  last  can  be  pulled  to 
pieces,  till  you  name  and  count  all  its  dead  parts,  and 
leave  them  dead  as  they  were.  In  schools,  the  pupil 
is  taught  structural  botany ;  how  to  analyze  flowers ; 
that  is,  how  to  find  the  stamens  and  pistil,  the  corolla 
and  calyx ;  a  purely  mechanical  separation  of  these 
fragile  structures  into  their  constituent  members,  as 
though  they  were  put  together  by  hand  on  a  stem  of 
wire ;  were  made  of  paper  or  wax.  God's  flowers, 
the  buttercups  and  daisies  that  toss  in  the  fields,  are 
creations ;  the  flowers  that  toss  with  toss  of  pride  or 
grace  upon  the  hats  of  ladies,  are  commodities. 


:. 


4         THE  SHAKESPEAREAN  INTERPRETER. 

la  Wilhelm,  Meister,  you  remember  how  the  great 
Goethe  describes  -the1  attempt  of  the  hero,  to  act  the 
-character, ;  of  '.Hamlet.  .He  began  by  approaching  it 
from  the  outside ;  by  committing  to  memory  the 
strong  passages,  the  soliloquies  ;  those  outbursts  which 
seemed  most  characteristic,  most  to  emphasize  Ham- 
let's peculiarities.  What  college  boy  has  not  spouted, 
"To  be  or  not  to  be?" — the  question  still.  Then, 
he  tried  to  take  over  upon  his  own  shoulders  that  load 
of  melancholy,  which  weighed  his  prototype  to  the 
earth,  as  young  men,  who  read  Byron,  conceive  them- 
selve  to  be  at  war  with  all  the  world,  and  with  God 
who  made  it,  and  try  to  write  poetry  in  that  vein,  the 
the  vein  of  Mephistopheles.  At  last,  he  hit  upon  the 
thought  that  what  he  wanted,  first  of  all,  was  a  key  to 
Hamlet  himself;  to  what  Hamlet  was,  before  his  fath- 
er's death ;  to  what  he  was,  independent  of  the  com- 
mand, so  strangely  and  awfully  laid  on  him  by  his 
father's  ghost ;  independent  of  his  weak  mother,  his 
uncle,  guilty  and  suspicious,  the  crafty  Polonius,  Ho- 
ratio the  true,  Ophelia  the  pure.  Getting  that  clew, 
all  the  rest  was  easy.  And  into  this  Hamlet  that  was, 
he  would  first  throw  himself,  that  he  might  understand 


THE  SHAKESPEAREAN  INTERPRETER.         5 

how  Hamlet  would  comport,  as,  by  degrees,  he  be- 
came environed  by  his  new  surroundings.  Thus  Wil- 
helm's  Hamlet  came  to  be  the  interpretation  of 
Shakespeare's  Hamlet ;  Hamlet  seen  through  Goethe's 
oriel  window. 

In  his  Pendennis,  again,  Thackeray  has  given  us 
Miss  Fotheringay,  as  Ophelia.  It  is  Miss  Fotherin- 
gay  in  the  character  of  Ophelia,  and  not  Ophelia  her- 
self. She  performs,  as  Thackery  describes,  with  "  ad- 
mirable, wild  pathos  ;  laughing,  weeping,  waving  her 
beautiful  white  arms,  and  flinging  about  her  snatches 
of  flowers  and  songs;  with  most  charming  madness"  ; 
while,  as  a  corpse  she  is  unequalled,  though  at  the  in- 
stant when  Hamlet  and  Laertes  are  battling  in  her 
grave,  she  is  looking  out  from  the  back  scenes  to  see 
how  her  acting  has  affected  Pendennis  and  the  family. 
She  was  not  interpreting  the  character.  She  had  been 
taught  to  make  the  most  of  Ophelia,  as  she  interpreted 
Miss  Fotheringay.  Ophelia  was  the  lay  figure,  on 
which  Miss  Fotheringay  tried  on  her  attitudes  and 
charms. 

The  subject  which  I  shall  discuss  is  THE  SHAKES- 
PEAREAN INTERPRETER. 


6  THE    SHAKESPEAREAN     INTERPRETER. 

No  man  ever  can  forget  the  hour  when  he  read  the 
first  page  of  Shakespeare.  The  memory  of  it  will  go 
with  him  to  his  grave.  It  marked  the  beginning  of  a 
new  era.  It  was  the  diet  of  the  gods,  the  taste  of 
which  will  never  leave  his  mouth.  It  gave  him  some- 
thing new  to  live  for ;  it  made  the  world  new  to  him. 
It  was  in  his  boyhood.  Perfectly  ignorant  of  the 
unities  and  harmonies,  nay,  of  all  the  rules  of  dra- 
matic art,  and  happy  in  his  unconsciousness  of  it,  he 
reads,  for  the  first  time,  the  ghost-scene  in  Hamlet ; 
he  sees  the  sentinel-watch  interrupted  by  the  appari- 
tion of  the  dead  king ;  he  hears  Horatio's  greeting  : 

"  What  art  thou,  that  usurp'st  this  time  of  ni^ht 
Together  with  that  fair  and  warlike  form 
In  which  the  majesty  of  buried  Denmark 
Did  sometimes  march?" 

It  is  not  in  the  power  of  acting  to  thrill  him  as 
Shakespeare's  uninterpreted  art  has  done.  "  I  care 
not,"  said  Abraham  Lincoln,  "  how  Shakespeare  is 
acted ;  with  him,  the  thought  suffices."  Richard 
Grant  White  is  right,  when  he  says,  "  In  reading 
Shakespeare,  the  first  rule,  and  it  is  absolute,  and 
without  exception,  is  to  read  him  only.  Throw  the 
commentators  and  the  editors  to  the  dogs.  Read  no 


THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER.  7 

man's  notes,  or  essays,  or  introductions ;  aesthetical, 
historical,  philosophical,  or  philological."  Yes,  and 
throw,  also,  the  actors  to  the  dogs.  Every  creation, 
whether  of  God  or  of  man  has  its  own  language  ;  its 
one  language.  Let  no  man  mouth  it  over  to  you ;  or 
into  your  ear.  There  is  only  one  first  time  that  a  pil- 
grim ever  stands  in  sacred  places ;  ever  reads  a  great 
author.  Of  the  memories  of  that  first  time,  he  can 
never  be  rid  ;  but,  in  their  first  freshness,  those  im- 
pressions can  never  return  at  all ;  they  can  never  re- 
turn except  as  memories.  When  Robert  Burns  wrote 
in  his  "  To  Mary  in  Heaven," 

"  Ayr ,  gurgling,  kissed  his  pebbled  shore, 
O'erhung  with  wildwoods,  thick'ning  green ; 

The  fragrant  birch,  and  hawthorn  hoar 
Twined  am'rous  round  the  raptured  scene : 

The  flowers  sprang  wanton  to  be  pressed, 
The  birds  sang  love  on  every  spray;" 

he  recorded  an  experience  never  to  be  repeated. 
Those  hours  of  first  love  could  never  come  back 
again.  The  emotions  of  his  soul  so  quickened,  he 
transferred  to  all  inanimate  things  :  to  water,  woods, 
flowers,  birds.  They  were  alive  with  this  new  passion ; 
transfigured  by  it.  At  that  moment,  they  all  spoke 


8  THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER. 

one  language ;  pulsated  with  one  life ;  they  all  bore 
the  burden  of  a  single  sacred  passion.  The  first  read- 
ing of  a  work  of  genius  is  like  the  first  sacred  passion, 
the  first  hours  of  pure  love. 

"  I  do  not  remember,"  says  Goethe,  "  that  any  book, 
or  person,  or  event  in  my  life  ever  produced  such  an 
effect  upon  me,  as  the  plays  of  Shakespeare.  I  could 
fancy  myself  standing  before  the  gigantic  books  of 
Fate,  through  which  the  hurricane  of  life  was  raging, 
and  violently  blowing  its  leaves  to  and  fro.  I  was  so 
astounded  by  their  strength  and  tenderness,  by  their 
power  and  their  peace,  and  my  mind  was  so  excited, 
that  I  long  for  the  time  when  I  shall  again  feel  myselt 
in  a  fit  state  to  read  further." 

What  interpretation,  what  an  interpreter  can  do  for 
an  author,  Carlyle  has  shown  us,  in  his  article  on 
Burns.  He  reinstated  him  into  his  environment ;  into 
the  soil,  out  of  which  he  grew,  crimson- tinted  with 
life's  blood-hue,  like  his  own  daisy ;  gave  him  again 
his  surroundings,  in  family,  in  church,  in  state,  in  em- 
ployment, in  manners ;  set  him  again  among  the  men 
and  women  of  his  own  period  ;  took  his  altitude  there, 
as  things  were  around  him.  If  he  had  hot  blood,  it 


THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER.  9 

flowed  in  the  veins  of  his  red-haired  mother,  who 
made  his  very  cradle  the  nursery  of  song ;  who  crooned 
Scotland's  melodies  in  his  ears,  while  as  yet  he  was  an 
infant.  If  he  revered  noble  manhood,  he  saw  it  il- 
lustrated as  Carlyle  himself  did,  in  a  father,  of  whom 
Scotland  might  well  be  proud  if  he  had  been  her  only 
product ;  who  was  alike  at  home  at  the  plowtail  and 
as  a  king  and  priest  unto  God  at  the  family  altar.  If 
he  despised  cant  and  hypocrisy ;  if  he  ridiculed  and 
travestied  his  contemporaries,  who,  like  the  sons  of 
Eli,  called  themselves  God's  elect,  and  acted  as  though 
they  were  reprobates — desecrated  sacred  things ;  it 
was  because  the  scourge  of  small  cords  had  been  put 
into  the  hands  of  his  genius,  by  the  glaring  inconsist- 
encies of  church  officials  around  him. 

Nearly  all  of  Burns'  compositions  have  a  local  hab- 
itation and  a  name.  What  is  now  called  the  land  of 
Burns  is  full  of  memorials  of  him ;  his  name  is  writ- 
ten from  one  end  of  it  to  the  other.  Where  he  was 
born,  and  where  he  died  ;  the  farms  he  cultivated  j  the 
churches  he  attended ;  his  convivial  haunts ;  the  Bible 
he  gave  his  'Highland  Mary' ;  that  lock  of  golden  hair 
clipped  on  that  holy  Sunday  of  parting ;  Tarn  O'Shan- 


10  THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER. 

ter's  drinking  cup ;  the  kirk  where  he  saw  the  witches 
dance ;  the  fields,  where  he  plowed  up  the  mouse's 
nest ;  the  "  wee,  modest,  crimson-tipped  "  daisy ;  the 
very  farm-yard,  where,  on  the  straw,  he  composed 
"  To  Mary  in  Heaven" ;  these  make  the  whole  region 
redolent  of  the  man ;  of  his  genius,  his  wild  pranks, 
his  follies,  his  untimely  exit  from  life.  Nature  and 
life  there  furnished  him  all  his  materials.  The  little 
horizon  which  encircled  him  in  Ayrshire,  embraced 
all  his  heroes  and  heroines.  He  had  no 

" kingdom  for  a  stage,  princes  to  act, 

And  monarchs  to  behold  the  swelling  scene !" 

It  was  peasants,  and  peasant-life,  which  he  depicted. 
His  ashes  rest  in  Dumfries'  Kirkyard,  and  the  centu- 
ries move  on  their  silent  course.  But,  Carlyle  has 
done  a  master- workman's  work  for  him.  They  never 
can  move  the  heart  of  man  away  from  that  sacred 
shrine.  His  footsteps  still  echo  there ;  his  singing 
robes  still  trail  among  the  daisies.  Ayr,  gurgling 
along  its  pebbled  bed,  will  always  go  seaward,  talking 
to  itself  day  and  night,  as  the  half-witted  talk ;  daft 
with  grief  for  the  loss  of  the  poet  with  his  faculty  di- 
vine, who  once  trod  its  banks.  Sweet  Afton  will  al- 
ways mingle  his  name  with  its  musical  murmurs.  The 


THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER.  II 

stock-dove,  the  lapwing,  the  mavis,  the  laverock ;  he 
has  laid  imposts  upon  them  all,  that  so  long  as  they 
tune  their  voices  in  song,  his  name  shall  never  be  for- 
gotten. The  primrose  shall  bloom  for  him,  the  blue- 
bell and  the  gowar?.  The  sweet-scented  birks,  the 
hazels,  the  heather,  ah  !  he  has  written  his  name  upon 
them  all :  Robert  Burns,  Poet.  Does  the  hot  blood 
leap  in  men's  veins,  as  they  make  their  first  stand  for 
freedom,  they  call  for 

"Scots  wha  hae  wi'  Wallace  bled!" 

Do  the  oppressed  and  downtrodden  think  of  mankind 
a's  God  made  it  and  would  have  it  to  be,  they  chant 
their  way  to  deliverance  with  the  words 

"A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that!" 

There  is  not  a  joy  of  man's  youth,  that  he  has  not 
caught  the  tint  of  it  and  put  it  down  in  his  peasant 
water-colors.  There  is  not  a  note  of  life's  merriment 
which  he  has  not  echoed.  There  is  not  a  human 
grief  of  which  he  has  not  chanted  the  refrain.  If 
you  want  a  transcript  of  beautiful  home-life ;  if  you 
want  to  see  man's  nature  in  its  loveliest  guise ;  if  you 
want  to  see  a  picture  of  filial  piety,  parental  affection, 
youthful  love,  patient  industry,  and  true  religion  all  in 


12  THE   SHAKESPEAREAN   INTERPRETER. 

one,  a  tout  ensemble  upon  which  angels  might  pause 
to  smile,  go  to  the  pages  of  Robert  Burns.  The  Cot- 
ter's Saturday  Night  stands  there  like  a  monumental 
temple,  a  mausoleum  erected  by  filial  hands  to  the 
memory  of  a  household  circle,  the  members  of  which 
have  been  translated.  And  the  Jolly  Beggars,  Tarn 
O'Shanter  and  the  Holy  Fair,  are  transcripts  of  an- 
other kind  of  life,  no  less  real,  perhaps  even  more  so 
— around  him. 

But,  there  is  no  outward  reproduction  and  restora- 
tion of  Shakespeare,  through  an  interpreter,  as  Car- 
lyle  has  given  of  Burns.  Though  we  know  that  he 
was  born  in  Stratford- on- Avon,  we  know  not  the  pre- 
cise day  of  his  birth.  And  between  the  date  of  his 
baptism,  April  26,  1564,  and  the  probable  date  of  his 
marriage  with  Anne  Hathaway — who  had  caught  him 
by  her  womanly  wiles — something  after  November  28, 
1582,  \\hen  he  had  just  passed  his  i8th  year,  there  is 
not  a  single  actual  fact  in  his  life  that  has  been  ascer- 
tained. That  he  was  rashly,  if  not  unequally,  yoked 
in  marriage ;  and  this,  after  a  youth  as  wild  and  rol- 
licking, if  not  as  disastrous,  as  that  of  Burns,  is  prob- 
able. That  he  did  not  live  much  at  home ;  'and  that 


THE   SHAKESPEAREAN     INTERPRETER.  13 

his  wife  and  his  business  may  have  united  to  give  him 
a  good  excuse  for  this ;  that  he  spent  his  years  mostly 
in  the  great  London,  where  men  make  no  marks  that 
are  left  behind  them,  seethe  awhile  as  in  a  whirlpool 
of  being,  and  are  not ;  did  his  work  for  a  livelihood 
as  unconsciously  as  though  he  had  been  a  man  set 
to  binding  old  books,  or  cobbling  old  shoes,  instead 
of  remodeling  old  dramas ;  this  seems,  also,  true 
That,  without  any  technical  education  or  profession, 
he  attained  a  kind  of  proficiency  in  all  knowledge  and 
every  manner  of  life,  drawing  all  things  to  himself  and 
his  art,  as  by  some  instinct ;  at  home  in  .every  charac- 
ter in  every  pursuit ;  seeing  men  and  life  in  their  dis- 
tinctive aspects,  and 'catching  their  salient  points,  as 
by  a  kind  of  intuition ;  that  being  of  human  life,  he 
lived  in  a  stratum  above  it,  as  though  a  philosophical 
looker-on  rather  than  a  participant  in  it ;  this,  also, 
we  infer.  Much  as  he  honored  England,  and  his 
works  are  a  monument  to  her,  there  is  very  little  to 
locate  him  as  belonging  to  any  country,  to  any  lati- 
tude, to  any  clime.  What  he  says  of  England  any 
other  poet,  a  poet  of  any  other  nationality,  might 
have  said  : 


14       THE  SHAKESPEAREAN  INTERPRETER. 

"  This  royal  throne  of  kings,  this  sceptred  isle, 
This  earth  of  majesty,  this  seat  of  Mars, 
This  other  Eden — demi-paradise — 
This  fortress  built  by  Nature  for  herself 
Against  infection  and  the  hand  of  war, 
This  happy  breed  of  men,  this  little  world, 
This  precious  stone  set  in  the  silver  sea." 
He  wrote  for  all  countries,  all  latitudes,  all  climes. 
You  open  Robert  Browning  and  read, 

"  Oh !  to  be  in  England,  now  that  April's  there, 
And  whoever  wakes  in  England  sees,  some  morning,  unaware, 
That  the  lowest  boughs  and  the  brushwood  sheaf 
Round  the  elm-tree  bole  are  in  tiny  leaf, 
While  the  chaffinch  sings  on  the  orchard  bough 
In  England — now !  " 

Here  is  an  Englishman  for  you ;  a  man  to  whom 
every  changing  month  of  the  year  in  his  native  land 
brings  a  new  chronicle  of  beauty ;  who  lives  over  in 
his  memory,  even  beneath  blue  Italian  skies,  the  tran- 
sitions of  nature,  as  England,  "  mother  England/' 
writes  them  in  her  calendar ;  writes  them  still  for  him, 
though  the  vision  of  them  is  denied ;  who  shuts  his 
eyes  and  is  among  them  again.  It  is  true  that  you 
can  find  in  Shakespeare  choice  word  pictures,  which 
are  only  English ;  as  for  example,  allusions  to  "  blue- 
veined  violets  "  and  "  primrose  banks  "  ;  and,  now  and 


THE    SHAKESPEAREAN     INTERPRETER.  15 

then,  an  outburst,  a  flight  of  song,  like  the  very  thing 
described  : 

"  Lo,  here  the  gentle  lark,  weary  of  rest, 
From  his  moist  cabinet  mounts  up  on  high, 
And  wakes  the  morning,  from  whose  silver  breast 
The  sun  ariseth  in  his  majesty ; 
Who  doth  the  world  so  gloriously  behold 
That  cedar-tops  and  hills  seem  burnished  gold." 

And  Shakespeare  locates  himself  in  time  as  belonging 
to  Queen  Elizabeth's  period,  in  such  passages  as  that 
one  of  surpassing  beauty  in  "  A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream  "  : 

Oberon.  Thou  rememberest 

Since  once  I  sat  upon  a  promontory, 
And  heard  a  mermaid  on  a  dolphin's  back 
Uttering  such  dulcet  and  harmonious  breath 
That  the  rude  sea  grew  civil  at  her  song, 
And  certain  stars  shot  madly  from  their  spheres 
To  hear  the  sea-maid's  music. 

Puck.    I  remember.  ^ 

Oberon.    That  very  time  I  saw,  but  thou  could'st  not, 
Flying  between  the  cold  moon  and  the  earth 
Cupid  all  armed ;  a  certain  aim  he  took 
At  a  fair  vestal  throned  by  the  west, 
And  loosed  his  love-shaft  smartly  from  his  bow, 
As  it  should  pierce  a  hundred  thousand  hearts ; 
But  I  might  see  young  Cupid's  fiery  shaft 
Quenched  in  the  chaste  beams  of  the  wat'ry  moon, 


1 6  THE   SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER. 

And  the  imperial  votaress  passed  on 
In  maiden  meditation  fancy-free." 

In  that  also  put  into  the  mouth  of  Cranmer  in  King 
Henry  VIII,  when  the  bishop  baptizes  the  infant 
daughter  of  Anne  Boleyn.  But,  he  is  no  more  an 
Englishman  in  England  than  he  is  a  Dane  in  Den- 
mark, or  a  Venetian  in  Venice ;  though  Schlegel 
rightly  calls  the  historical  plays  a  sort  of  national  epic, 
as  St.  Peter's  is  to  Italy. 

The  literary  interpreter  is  like  the  Biblical  in  this  : 
that  if  possible  he  must  posit  his  author ;  give  him 
the  setting  which  he  had  in  his  civilization ;  repro- 
duce him  amid  his  surroundings.  This  I  have  already 
implied  as  needful  in  the  interpretation  of  character. 
Ewald  finds  that  everything  combined,  in  Judah  and 
Jerusalem,  to  make  Isaiah  the  greatest  Hebrew  proph- 
et of  the  centuries  ;  to  give  him,  as  the  critic  expresses 
it,  "  that  calm,  sunny  height  which  a  specially  favored 
mind  takes  possession  of,  at  the  right  time,  in  every 
ancient  literature  ;  a  height  that  seems  to  wait  for  him, 
and  when  he  is  come  and  risen  to  it,  seems  to  main- 
tain and  guard  him  to  the  end  without  intermission, 
as  its  proper  occupier."  Everywhere,  Isaiah  makes 


THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER.  1 7 

himself  known  as  the  regal  prophet,  in  his  thoughts, 
the  matter  of  his  orations,  and  the  style  of  his  expres- 
sion. Such  a  positing  Ewald  has  attempted  for  this 
greatest  of  the  Hebrew  prophets ;  and  such  a  positing 
Scherer  has  lately  given  to  Goethe.  Shakespeare 
finds  such  a  height  awaiting  him  in  Elizabeth's  time. 
This  forms  the  basis  of  all  accurate  interpretation. 
Authors  are  to  be  interpreted  just  as  their  creations 
are  interpreted.  It  is  not  Goethe  alone  who  pro- 
duces "The  Sorrows  of  Werther,"  but  Goethe  at  such 
a  period  in  his  life,  and  at  such  a  period  in  the  his- 
tory of  German  literature.  In  his  genius,  Goethe 
unfolds  like  the  unfolding  of  the  century  plant,  year 
by  year,  and  not  day  by  day ;  studying  himself  and 
his  art,  and  gathering  forces  for  a  hundred  years,  and 
coming  to  full  bloom  only  in  his  last  score ;  in  a  cer- 
tain sense,  moving  along  with  all  Germany  at  his 
heels,  as  the  pied-piper  of  Hamelin  drew  the  rats 
and  then  the  children.  And  when  Goethe  reaches 
his  "calm,  sunny  height,"  he  knows  himself  as  thor- 
oughly as  he  could  know  another  man  ;  as  Carlyle 
says,  "he  is  neither  noble,  nor  plebeian;  neither  lib- 
eral, nor  servile ;  neither  infidel  nor  devotee ;  but  a 


1 8        THE  SHAKESPEAREAN  INTERPRETER. 

clear  and  universal  man  !  For,  to  say  nothing  of  his 
natural  gifts,  he  has  cultivated  himself  and  his  art,  he 
has  studied  how  to  live  and  how  to  write,  with  a  fidel- 
ity, an  unwearied  earnestness,  of  which  there  is  no 
other  living  instance ;  of  which  among  British  poets, 
especially,  Wordsworth  alone  offers  any  resemblance." 
And  as  Goethe  studied  himself,  so  Scherer  has  stud- 
ied him  and  portrayed  him. 

To  know  oneself  in  one's  work  as  a  creator,  is  not 
the  highest  function  of  the  creator.  The  function  of 
reflection  is  inferior  to  that  of  unconscious  creation. 
This,  Carlyle  himself  has  been  careful  to  emphasize 
in  what  he  says  upon  Shakespeare  in  his  lecture, 
"  The  Hero  as  a  Poet  " ;  "  Shakespeare's  intellect  is 
what  I  call  an  unconscious  intellect ;  there  is  more 
virtue  in  it  than  he  himself  is  aware  of.  His  art  is 
not  artifice ;  the  noblest  worth  of  it  is  not  there  by 
plan  or  precontrivance.  Such  a  man's  works,  what- 
soever he  with  utmost  conscious  exertion  and  fore- 
thought shall  accomplish,  grow  up  unconsciously,  from 
the  unknown  deeps  within  him ;  as  the  oak  tree  grows 
up  from  the  earth's  bosom ;  as  the  mountains  and 
waters  shape  themselves ;  with  a  symmetry  grounded 


THE   SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER.  19 

on  Nature's  own  laws,  conformable  to  all  truth  what- 
soever." If  Goethe  is  the  universal  man,  he  puts  so 
much  of  himself  into  his  work  that  we  can  trace  how 
he  became  so ;  under  what  influences  of  place,  of 
teacher,  of  companion,  he  developed ;  how  he  inter- 
wove into  his  novels  and  his  dramas  threads  from  his 
own  life  in  its  different  stages,  and  from  his  contem- 
poraries, even  of  those  in  the  sacred  precincts  of  per- 
sonal friendship ;  we  can  discern  his  Strasburg  period 
and  his  Weimar  period ;  what  was  done  for  him  by 
travel  and  by  court  life ;  how  he  felt  the  influence  of 
Frederike,  Lili,  Frau  Von  Stein,  and  even  his  own  hum- 
bler Christine  Vulpius,  who  taught  him  also ;  what  he 
owed  to  Karl  August,  and  what  he  owed  to  Friedrich 
Schiller.  Bayard  Taylor  reminds  us  that  it  is  the 
Margaret  of  his  boyhood  that  appears  at  the  spin- 
ning wheel  in  his  Faust.  There  is  no  such  material 
for  such  an  interpretation  of  Shakespeare.  His  work 
was  not  that  kind  of  work.  It  was  done  on  a  higher 
plane.  His  Hamlet,  for  example,  is  not  a  man  of 
shreds  and  patches  picked  up  in  the  course  of  a  short 
life  at  Stratford-on-Avon  and  a  longer  one" in  London ; 
picked  up  from  observation  of  this  man  and  that  man ; 


20  THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER. 

partly  himself  at  one  period  of  his  life,  and  partly  him- 
self at  another  period  of  his  life  ;  but  made  only  from 
humanity.  Hamlet  is  as  genuine  a  creation  out  of  the 
possibilities  of  humanity,  out  of  the  certainties  of  hu- 
manity, in  certain  fixed  conditions,  as  though  he  actu- 
ally lived  there  in  Denmark,  and  had  his  father's  mur- 
der to  avenge.  And  that  is  why,  and  why  only,  Goethe 
himself  was  able  to  interpret  him  in  Wilhelm  Meister. 
But,  Hamlet  was  not  made  up,  as  Goethe  made  up 
his  Werther  ;  half  from  himself  and  half  from  a  youth 
called  Jerusalem,  the  son  of  a  Brunswick  clergyman, 
who  shot  himself  in  Wetzlar  in  1772.  And  Shakes- 
peare did  not  have  to  go  about  apologizing  for  the 
liberties  he  had  taken  with  his  nearest  friends,  as  did 
the  great  German. 

A  man  must  know  human  nature  as  Shakespeare 
himself  knew  it,  in  order  to  interpret  human  nature 
in  Shakespeare.  As  face  answers  to  face  in  the  water, 
so  the  heart  of  Shakespeare's  men  to  the  heart  of  real 
men,  the  world  over.  Even  the  historic  characters, 
those  that  are  taken  bodily  out  of  English  history,  are 
so  handled ;  are  so  elevated  out  of  the  plane  where 
they  lived  and  acted ;  are  put  in  such  positions  and 


THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER.  21 

relations  to  other  historic  characters ;  have  such  lights 
and  shadows  falling  on  them,  that  they  cannot  be  jus- 
tified, without  a  philosophy  respecting  them  which  is 
true  to  human  nature.  And  when,  as  in  the  character 
of  Julius  Caesar,  Shakespeare  seems  to  be  untrue  to 
history,  he  shows  himself  true  to  human  nature ;  he 
gives  us  the  Julius  Caesar  the  conspirators  thought 
they  were  conspiring  against.  In  Rufus  Lyon,  George 
Eliot  says  :  s(  We  may  err  in  giving  a  too  private  in- 
terpretation to  the  Scriptures.  The  Word  of  God  has 
to  satisfy  the  larger  needs  of  His  people,  like  the  rain 
and  the  sunshine  j  which  no  man  must  think  to  be 
meant  for  his  own  patch  of  seed-ground  solely."  The 
very  principle  which  makes  it  within  the  compass  of 
the  Shakespearean  critic  to  detect  the  handiwork  of 
the  great  dramatist,  to  know  it  from  the  work  of  any 
Francis  Bacon,  as  Falstaff  claimed  to  know  the  Prince, 
by  instinct,  is  the  principle  not  alone  that  his  style  is 
his  own ;  his  power  of  phrasing  thoughts,  as  no  mere 
man  ever  before  phrased  them  ;  of  minting  things  into 
expressions,  which  bear  the  impress  of  his  genius,  as 
the  coin  the  impress  of  the  mint  from  which  it  falls ; 
but  that  there  are  discoverable  great  laws  according 


22        THE  SHAKESPEAREAN  INTERPRETER. 

to  which  he  worked,  the  application  of  which  makes 
his  work  a  unit ;  gives  it  unity,  like  the  unity  of  God's 
work  in  nature ;  and  not  only  that,  brings  it  into  har- 
mony with  God's  work  in  nature. 

Take,  for  example,  the  madness  of  Hamlet  and  the 
madness  of  King  Lear ;  the  one,  madness  in  certain 
departments  of  life,  with  relation  to  certain  men  and 
women ;  madness  in  certain  compartments  of  the 
mind,  other  compartments  being  all  the  more  acute ; 
and  the  other,  the  utter  wrecking  of  the  mind,  as 
when  a  ship  goes  to  pieces  among  the  rocks ;  its  frag- 
ments torn  apart  and  hurried  away  by  every  breaker. 
Study  these  instances  as  a  physician ;  as  a  metaphy- 
sician ;  as  a  philosopher  looking  at  man  merely  as 
a  phenomenon  ;  no  other  such  work  has  ever  been 
done  by  the  art  of  man.  Do  you  ask,  "  Did  Shakes- 
peare know  what  he  was  doing,  as  we  know  it?"  He 
knew  what  he  was  doing,  in  the  sense  that  it  satisfied 
all  the  demands  of  his  genius  when  it  was  done.  And 
here  is  the  central  marvel  of  his  power,  that  he  did 
it  as  though  he  were  not  doing  it.  If  Bacon  wrote 
Shakespeare,  Bacon  knew  what  he  was  doing  and  con- 
cealed it  till  Ignatius  Donelly  came  and  ciphered  it 


THE  SHAKESPEAREAN  INTERPRETER.       23 

out.  Take  the  struggle  which  went  on  in  the  mind  of 
Hamlet's  uncle,  when  he  tried  to  pray.  All  the  theo- 
logical and  metaphysical  disquisitions,  from  the  days 
of  Thomas  Aquinas  until  now,  fail  of  giving  us  a  better 
analysis  of  the  difference  between  the  old  man  and 
the  new  man  in  human  nature ;  between  moral  and 
natural  necessity ;  between  prayer  which  is  genuine, 
and  prayer  that  is  false ;  between  God  honored  and 
God  mocked  in  prayer.  Here  was  the  better  man 
trying  to  bring  the  worser  man  upon  his  knees  before 
God ;  counting  over,  as  a  man  counts  coin  out  of  his 
own  hand  into  another  man's,  as  the  Jews  purchased 
the  innocent  blood  from  Judas,  all  that  it  would  cost 
to  shift  back  from  that  orbit  of  blackness  of  darkness, 
into  which  his  sins  had  wrenched  him,  into  the  orbit 
of  light  and  love  and  joy,  where  God  was  waiting  to 
absolve  him  and  say,  "  Depart  in  peace  !" 
Emerson  has  said  : 

"  The  hand  that  rounded  Peter's  dome 

And  groined  the  aisles  of  Christian  Rome, 

Wrought  in  a  sad  sincerity ; 

Himself  from  God  he  could  not  free ; 

He  builded  better  than  he  knew ; 

The  conscious  stone  to  beauty  grew." 

This  is  the  way  instinct  works.     It  seems  to  impart 


24  THE   SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER. 

itself  to  the  things  done,  as  though  they  were  given 
under  an  unseen  law.  It  has  been  well  remarked  by 
Moulton  in  his  "Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatic  Artist," 
that  "  It  is  in  accordance  with  the  order  of  things 
that  Shakespeare  should  produce  dramas  by  the  prac- 
tical process  of  art-creation,  and  that  it  should  be  left 
to  others,  his  critics  succeeding  him  at  long  intervals, 
to  discover  by  analysis  his  purposes  and  the  laws 
which  underlie  his  effects."  The  art  of  the  swallow 
in  making  the  arched  walls  of  its  nest  under  the  eaves 
of  the  barn ;  in  mixing  the  mortar  out  of  which  it 
builds  these  walls,  is  unconscious.  The  art  of  the  bee 
in  building  its  hexagonal  cells ;  the  electicism  of  the 
vegetable  kingdom,  as  it  takes  coveted  qualities  from 
the  earth  and  distributes  them,  some  to  stalk,  some  to 
leaf,  some  to  fruit,  is  all  under  law ;  is  all  done  "  in  a 
sad  sincerity,"  as  if  nature  could  not  free  herself  from 
her  Creator.  This  is  the  manner  in  which  mind  creates. 
Nor  is  Hamlet  any  more  Hamlet  than  is  Macbeth, 
Macbeth;  than  is  Othello,  Othello  ;  Fallstaff,  Fafistaff; 
Jacques,  Jacques.  Never  for  one  moment  does  the 
man  Shakespeare  show  himself  masquerading  under 
some  other  name.  The  conscious  character  grows 


THE   SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER.  25 

under  the  hand  of  the  unconscious  Artist.  And  when 
we  come  to  female  character,  that  most  volatile  and 
ethereal  embodiment  of  God's  image,  we  find  the 
same  mastery  over  sentiment  and  motives  such  as 
sway  the  heart  of  woman ;  we  find  a  gallery  of 
female  creations  as  fresh  and  unique,  as  though  they 
had  been  taken  as  Eve  was,  from  the  very  ribs  of 
humanity  itself  :  Portia,  the  magnetism  of  whose 
beauty  is  thus  expressed  : 

"  From  the  four  corners  of  the  earth  they  come 
To  kiss  this  shrine,  this  mortal-breathing  saint ; 
The  Hyrcanian  deserts  and  the  vasty  wilds 
Of  wide  Arabia,  are  as  thoroughfares  now 
For  princes  to  come  view  fair  Portia ; 
The  wat'ry  kingdom,  whose  ambitious  head 
Spits  in  the  face  of  heav'n,  is  no  bar 
To  stop  the  foreign  spirits,  but  they  come 
As  o'er  a  brook,  to  see  fair  Portia ; 

Portia,  a  woman  set  there,  as  Mrs.  Jameson  expresses 
it,  as  "cotemporary  of  the  Raffaelles  and  the  Ariostos  ; 
while  the  sea-wedded  Venice,  its  merchants  and  mag- 
nificos,  the  Rialto  and  the  long  canal,  rise  up  before 
us  when  we  think  of  her ;"  Juliet,  with  all  the  Spring 
fragrance  and  color  and  freshness  and  fervor  of  a 
maidenhood  just  opening  into  womanhood;  Juliet, 


26        THE  SHAKESPEAREAN  INTERPRETER. 

dying  as  the  flowers  do,  because  such  fragrance  and 
color  and  freshness  and  fervor  cannot  be  perpetuated 
in  humanity,  any  more  than  in  flowers ;  Juliet,  "all 
love,"  as  Mrs.  Jameson  has  it :  alove  itself,"  blending 
in  her  one  self  athe  love  that  is  so  chaste  and  digni- 
fied in  Portia ;  so  airy-delicate  and  fearless  in  Miranda ; 
so  sweetly  confiding  in  Perdita ;  so  playfully  fond  in 
Rosalind ;  so  constant  in  Imogen ;  so  devoted  in  Des- 
demona ;  so  fervent  in  Helen  j  so  tender  in  Viola ; 
and  exhaling  her  life  for  love,  as  the  flower  exhales  its 
fragrance  ;"  Beatrice,  with  a  wit  as  penetrating  as  the 
lance  of  Saladin,  with  a  tongue  as  shaip  and  ragged- 
edged  and  salt  as  the  East-wind,  straight  from  a  watery 
continent  of  saltness ;  and  yet  in  spite  of  it  all,  wo- 
manly and  capable  of  being  wedded ;  and  so  over  the 
whole  round  orb  of  female  possibilities.  Richard 
Grant  White  says  that  "  Shakespeare  is  not  woman's 
poet."  No,  nor  man's  either.  He  is  humanity's  poet. 
And  God  made  man,  male  and  female ;  and  Shakes- 
peare has  depicted  man,  male  and  female.  The  same 
American  critic  has  said  that  Shakespeare  has  written 
next  to  nothing  in  praise  of  woman ;  and,  therefore, 
his  home-life  must  have  been  embittered  by  Anne 


THE  SHAKESPEAREAN  INTERPRETER.        27 

Hathaway.  His  gallery  of  female  portraits  speaks  for 
itself.  To  depict  woman  as  Shakespeare  has  done,  is 
her  highest  praise.  It  is  not  praise  that  woman  needs 
of  poets ;  it  is  to  be  portrayed  as  she  is.  And  as 
Bulwer  has  said,  "a  woman  was  the  first  to  interpret 
aright"  how  Shakespeare  had  portrayed  woman.  It 
took  a  woman's  genius  to  do  it. 

It  is  the  German  Heine  who  says  :  "  The  globe  is 
Shakespeare's  unity  of  place ;  eternity  is  his  unity  of 
time  ;  and  humanity  his  hero  :"  and  the  English  Haz- 
litt :  "  It  is  we  who  are  Hamlet."  Yes,  and  it  is  we 
who  are  all  the^rest :  Falstaff  and  Lear  and  Macbeth  ; 
Portia,  Miranda,  Ophelia.  For,  all  Shakespeare's 
characters  are  representative  and  typical ;  stand  ever 
after  as  at  the  head  of  their  class.  Ulrici  says,  "Goethe 
is,  in  fact,  the  microcosm  of  his  own  age  and  nation." 
Shakespeare  is  the  microcosm  of  all  ages  and  all 
nations ;  the  poet  of  the  aeons,  turning  over  for  human- 
ity, pages  transcribed  from  the  living  tablet  of  the 
heart. 

If  all  this  is  true ;  if  there  is  no  such  thing  as  in- 
terpreting Shakespeare  from  our  knowledge  of  himself 
or  of  his  material ;  if,  again,  it  is  true  that  he  did  not 


28  THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER. 

draw  his  portraits  from  actual  models  seen  without, 
but  moulded  them  from  original  materials  within,  as 
the  silk-worm  eats  and  digests  fibres  of  leaves  and 
makes  them  into  silks ;  if  the  interpreter  of  Shakes- 
peare's men  and  women  is  obliged  to  study  them  and 
to  make  their  acquaintance,  just  as  he  would  study  and 
make  the  acquaintance  of  living  men  and  women 
around  him ;  it  follows  that  there  is  no  more  difficult, 
no  more  eminent,  literary  work  done  than  that, done 
by  the  Shakespearean  interpreter.  Next  to  Shakes- 
peare, stand  the  men  who  best  know  how  to  interpret 
him.  It  is  not  strange,  then,  that  such  men  as  Goethe 
and  Schlegel,  as  Hazlitt  and  Coleridge  have  delighted 
to  sit  at  the  feet  of  this  great  master.  Where  else 
should  such  genius  sit?  JThe  work  of  interpreting 
Shakespeare,  besides  quickening  a  man's  best  powers, 
has  all  the  fascination  of  living  among  the  noblest  and 

and  purest  ideals  of  humanity ;  while  the  imagination 

& 

is  led  on  from  delight  to  delight!  as  was  the  ship- 
wrecked Ferdinand  in  The  Tempest,  by  the  music  of 
Ariel ;  and  with  much  the  same  thought : 

"  Where  should  this  music  be?  i'  the  air,  or  the  earth? 
It  souno!s  no  more ;  and  sure  it  waits  upon 
Some  god  o'  the  island." 


THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER.  29 

It  is  a  world  of  thought  and  life,  which  moves  en- 
sphered in  music.  There  is  the  sense  of  an  atmos- 
phere of  magic,  like  that  which  surrounds,  as  with 
his  invisible  network,  all  the  inhabitants  of  Prosperous 
island.  Everything  beats  with  Shakespearean  life ; 
and  all  things  contribute  to  the  triumph  of  his  art. 
You  are  as  really  insulated  to  impressions  from  him  as 
though  set  in  mid  ocean ;  inarched  beneath  his  skyey 
influences,  you  look  up  to  the  constellated  handiwork, 
in  his  firmament  of  thought,  as  though  the  world  of 
his  magic  were  the  only  real  one — as  while  you  study 
him,  it  is. 

This  work  of  the  Shakespearean  interpreter,  HENRY 
NORMAN  HUDSON,  the  man  whom  our  Alma  Mater 
mourns  and  honors  to-day,  chose  as  the  work  of  his 
life.  How  real  it  was  to  him ;  how  his  whole  soul 
was  absorbed  in  it ;  how  he  sucked  the  sweetness  of 
it,  as  the  bee  sucks  the  flower,  may  be  gathered  from 
his  own  words  respecting  the  Shakespearean  charac- 
ters :  "  I  have  much  the  same  life  in  their  society  as 
in  that  of  my  breathing  fellow-travellers ;  with  this 
addition,  that  I  know  sickness  cannot  wither  their 
bloom,  nor  death  make  spoil  of  their  sweetness ;  " 


30  THE   SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER. 

closing  with  a  quotation  from  Wordsworth,  which 
embraces  the  thought  of  the  monk  who  ate  his  daily 
bread  in  presence  of  Titian's  picture  of  the  Last 

Supper : 

"  I  not  seldom  gaze 
Upon  this  solemn  company,  unmoved 
By  shock  of  circumstance  or  lapse  of  years, 
Until  I  cannot  but  believe  that  they, 
They  are,  in  truth,  the  substance,  we  the  shadows." 

That  he  did  his  work  well  may  be  inferred  from  the 
testimony  in  The  Literary  World  of  W.  J.  Rolfe, 
A.  M.,  of  Cambridgeport,  who  has  chosen  the  same 
department  of  labor  and  is  authority  in  it,  and  who 
attributes  to  Mr.  Hudson's  lectures,  published  in  1848, 
only  eight  years  after  he  graduated,  his  own  first  real 
interest  in  Shakespearean  study.  This  is  what  he 
says :  "  Mr.  Hudson's  works  are,  to  our  thinking, 
the  best  piece  of  aesthetic  criticism  on  Shakespeare 
that  has  appeared  in  this  country ;  and  one  that  will 
take  rank  with  the  great  works  of  its  class  in  English 
and  German  literature."  Let  us  pause  a  moment,  to 
take  in  what  this  means  :  This  Cornwall  boy,  the  son 
of  a  Cornwall  farmer ;  in  early  life  apprenticed  to  a 
coach-maker ;  attracted  to  the  haljs  of  Middlebury 


THE  SHAKESPEAREAN  INTERPRETER.       31 

college — whose  daily  morning  bell  was  to  him  like 
a  trumpet  call,  a  literary  reveille ;  entering  here  at 
twenty-two,  with  an  insatiable  appetite  for  books ; 
in  addition  to  routine  work,  giving  himself  to  the 
study  of  such  books  as  Butler's  Analogy,  Plutarch's 
Lives,  and  the  book  next  to  the  Bible  the  great 
English  Classic,  the  Works  of  Shakespeare;  does 
such  masterly  work,  as  the  interpreter  of  the  great 
dramatist,  that  he  is  admitted  into  the  society  of 
the  great  universal  man,  the  many-sided  Goethe,  ot 
whom  it  has  been  said  that  he  is  the  greatest  critic 
the  world  has  produced ;  the  dreamy-thoughted,  phil- 
osophical Coleridge ;  the  acute  and  epigrammatic 
Hazlitt.  Gleaning  in  the  same  field  where  they  and 
others  have  been  before  him,  he  so  appropriates  and 
digests  their  thoughts,  he  so  originates  views  of  his 
own,  that  when  he  dies  at  seventy- two  he  leaves  a 
compendium  of  interpretations  and  criticisms,  new  and 
old,  second,  probably,  to  none  in  completeness  and 
suggestiveness,  in  delicacy  and  discrimination,  in 
solidity  and  value ;  thus  linking  himself  and  his  life 
to  that  which  can  never  die. 

Nor  does  Mr.  Hudson  confine  himself  to  aesthetic 


32       THE  SHAKESPEAREAN  INTERPRETER. 

criticism  alone.  He  studies  Shakespeare  inductively, 
as  hereafter  he  must  always  be  studied ;  shows  us  how 
by  the  coloring  of  the  different  characters,  their  jux- 
taposition and  relation,  they  modify  and  relieve  each 
other;  as  for  example,  how  the  character  of  Lady 
Macbeth  is  rendered  endurable  and  even  attractive 
and  fascinating  by  the  fact  that  she  is  ambitious  only 
for  her  husband ;  that  promotion  is  sought  as  domes- 
tic partnership,  as  we  see  by  what  is  implied  in  the 
words  with  which  he  addresses  her  in  the  letter  ap- 
prising her  of  his  meeting  with  the  witches  :  "  This 
have  I  thought  good  to  deliver  to  thee,  my  dearest 
partner  of  greatness,  that  thou  mightest  not  lose  the 
dues  of  rejoicing,  by  being  ignorant  of  what  greatness 
is  promised  thee ;  "  as,  also,  in  the  soliloquy  of  Lady 
Macbeth  after  the  reception  of  this  letter  : 

'•  Hie  thee  hither, 

That  I  may  pour  my  spirits  in  thine  ear, 
And  chastise,  with  the  valor  of  my  tongue, 
All  that  impedes  thee  from  the  golden  round, 
Which  fate  and  metaphysical  aid  doth  seem 
To  have  thee  crowned  withal." 

But,  perhaps,  a  still  more  unusual  and  delicate  piece 
of  inductive  criticism  is  his  treatment  of  the  charac- 


THE  SHAKESPEAREAN  INTERPRETER.       33 

ter  of  Ophelia,  and  her  relation  to  Hamlet's  mother. 
Here  is  a  woman  who  deserves  all  of  her  son's  invec- 
tive, when  in  answer  to  her  question,  What  have  I 
done  ?  he  says  : 

"  Such  an  act 

That  blurs  the  grace  and  blush  of  modesty ; 
Calls  virtue  hypocrite ;  takes  off  the  rose 
From  the  fair  forehead  of  an  innocent  love, 
And  sets  a  blister  there ;  makes  marriage  vows 
As  false  as  dicers'  oaths ;  O,  such  a  deed 
As  from  the  body  of  contraction  plucks 
The  very  soul ;  and  sweet  religion  makes 
A  rhapsody  of  words !    Heaven's  face  doth  glow ; 
Yea,  this  solidity  and  compound  mass, 
With  tristful  visage,  as  against  the  doom, 
Is  thought-sick  at  the  act." 

And  yet,  when  at  Ophelia's  burial  she  talks  of  her 
disappointed  hopes,  we  cannot  help  feeling  tenderly 

toward  her : 

"  Sweets  to  the  sweet ;  farewell ! 
I  hoped  thou  should'st  have  been  my  Hamlet's  wife ; 
I  thought  thy  bride-bed  to  have  decked,  sweet  maid, 
And  not  have  strewed  thy  grave." 

Says  Mr.  Hudson  :  u  The  queen's  affection  for  this 
lovely  being  is  one  of  those  unexpected  strokes  of 
art,  so  frequent  in  Shakespeare,  which  surprise  us  by 
their  very  naturalness.  That  Ophelia  should  disclose 


34  THE   SHAKESPEAREAN     INTERPRETER. 

a  vein  of  goodness  in  the  queen,  was  necessary,  per- 
haps, to  keep  us  both  from  misprising  the  influence  of 
the  one,  and  exaggerating  the  wickedness  of  the  other. 
The  love  she  thus  inspires  tells  us  that  her  helpless- 
ness springs  from  innocence,  not  from  weakness ;  and 
so  prevents  the  pity,  which  her  condition  moves,  from 
lessening  the  respect  due  to  her  character.  Almost 
any  other  author  would  have  depicted  the  queen  with- 
out a  single  alleviating  trait.  Shakespeare,  with  far 
more  effect,  as  well  as  far  more  truth,  exhibits  her 
with  such  a  mixture  of  good  and  bad,  as  neither  dis- 
arms censure  nor  precludes  pity.  Herself  dragged 
along  in  the  terrible  train  of  consequences  which  her 
own  guilt  had  a  hand  in  starting,  she  is  hurried  away 
into  the  same  dreadful  abyss  with  those  whom  she 
loves  and  against  whom  she  has  sinned.  In  her  ten- 
derness towards  Hamlet  and  Ophelia,  we  recognize 
the  virtues  of  a  mother  without  in  the  least  palliating 
the  guilt  of  the  wife ;  while  the  crimes  in  which  she 
is  a  partner  almost  disappear  in  those  of  which  she  is 
the  victim." 

Nor  is  even  Mrs.   Jameson  more   appreciative   of 
Ophelia's  character,  or  scrupulous  about  her  reputa- 


THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER.  35 

tion,  than  Mr.  Hudson.  This,  too,  is  the  result  of 
inductive  study.  "The  space, "  he  writes,  "Ophelia 
fills  in  the  reader's  thoughts  is  strangely  disproportion- 
ate to  that  she  fills  in  the  play.  Her  very  silence 
utters  her ;  unseen,  she  is  missed,  and  so  thought  of 
the  more ;  in  her  absence  she  is  virtually  present,  in 
what  others  bring  from  her.  Whatever  grace  comes 
from  Polonius  and  the  queen  is  of  her  inspiring ; 
Laertes  is  scarce  regarded  but  as  he  loves  his  sister ; 
of  Hamlet's  soul,  too,  she  is  the  sunrise  and  morning 
hymn.  The  soul  of  innocence  and  gentleness,  virtue 
radiates  from  her  insensibly,  as  fragrance  is  exhaled 
from  flowers.  It  is  in  such  forms  that  heaven  most 
frequently  visits  us." 

Mr.  Hudson  was  also  a  teacher  as  well  as  lecturer 
and  author.  For  twenty  years  he  gave  instruction  in 
Shakespeare  to  the  young  ladies  in  Gannett  Institute, 
Boston.  He  also  taught  in  other  schools  in  that 
region.  Above  the  medium  height,  thin,  wiry,  with 
sharp  and  angular  features ;  with  grey  eyes,  keen,  ex- 
pressive and  penetrating ;  with  a  facial  expression 
peculiar  and  striking ;  not  at  all  an  elocutionist,  he 
stood  before  his  audiences  and  classes  as  if  charged 


36  THE    SHAKESPEAREAN   INTERPRETER. 

with  a  kind  of  electric  light,  burdened  with  a  kind  of 
volcanic  energy,  struggling  to  find  exit  in  flashes  or 
volumes  of  expression ;  in  his  own  untaught  and  un- 
trammeled  way,  by  tones,  emphasis  and  accent,  ges- 
tures, contortions  and  gyrations,  getting  for  himself  the 
utterance  he  sought  and  inspiring  his  hearers  and 
pupils  with  his  own  enthusiasm.  If  he  was  positive 
and  dogmatic,  it  was  because  he  had  thoroughly 
studied  every  foot  of  ground  on  which  he  trod ;  be- 
cause he  took  nothing  by  dictation,  nothing  for  grant- 
ed. He  prescribed  no  routine  work ;  he  required  no 
especial  preparation  on  the  part  of  his  pupils.  If  they 
could  sit  in  his  presence  and  listen  to  his  discussions 
and  portrayals  and  subtle  analyses  without  being 
moved  to  personal  thought  and  study,  without  coming 
to  feel  with  regard  to  the  Shakespearean  world  that  it 
was  a  real  one  and  they  were  in  it ;  that  Portia  and 
Juliet  and  Ophelia  and  Rosalind  and  Desdemona  and 
Cordelia  were  their  sister  women,  their  companions, 
their  teachers,  whose  aspirations  and  emulations,  whose 
joys  and  sorrows  they  could  understand,  then,  alas  ! 
routine  work  would  do  them  no  good ;  they  were  past 
getting  anything  out  of  text-books.  He  took  a  sin- 


THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER.  37 

cere  and  deep  interest  in  the  pupils  he  instructed  ; 
felt  toward  them  a  kind  of  fatherly  concern,  that  they 
might  get  an  insight  into  the  great  themes  he  dis- 
cussed and  thus  furnish  themselves  for  literary  re- 
freshment and  education  all  their  lives  long ;  as  though 
he  were  conferring  upon  them  a  benefit  which  they 
would  some  day  understand. 

Other  pursuits  Mr.  Hudson  had  followed.  In  1849 
he  took  deacon's  orders  in  the  Episcopal  church ;  and 
from  1858-1860  he  served  as  rector  to  a  church  in 
Litchfield,  Connecticut.  During  three  years  he  was 
editor  of  the  Church  Journal ;  served  as  chaplain  to 
the  "  New  York  Volunteer  Engineers"  under  General 
Butler  during  the  civil  war,  a  part  of  the  time  under 
arrest ;  an  episode  which  his  caustic  pen  has  duly 
commemorated ;  and  for  a  short  time  was  editor  of 
the  Saturday  Evening  Gazette.  But  it  may  be  said 
that  he  put  the  strength  of  his  life  into  his  Shakes- 
pearean studies.  In  1848  he  published  lectures  on 
Shakespeare,  in  two  volumes,  the  work  running  through 
two  editions  in  a  single  year;  in  i85o-'57,  an  edition 
of  Shakespeare,  in  eleven  volumes;  in  1870,  "School 
Shakespeare";  in  1872,  "Life,  Art  and  Characters  of 


38        THE  SHAKESPEAREAN  INTERPRETER. 

Shakespeare,"  a  work  which  embraces  all  the  best 
results  of  his  study  in  this  direction;  in  1881,  the 
"  Harvard  Edition  of  Shakespeare,"  in  ten  volumes. 
Besides  these  he  had  published,  in  1874,  a  volume  of 
sermons;  in  1875,  a  "  Text-Book  of  Poetry" ;  in 
1876,  a  "Text-Book  of  Prose";  in  1878,  a  "Classical 
English  Reader,"  and  at  other  times,  "  Essays  on 
Education,"  "  English  Studies,"  and  other  works. 
These  all  give  us  some  conception  of  his  literary 
activity  and  capacity.  It  is  only  when  we  read  "Gen- 
eral Butler's  Campaign  on  the  Hudson,"  a  brochure 
penned  after  he  had  been  kept  by  that  doughty  gen- 
eral 51  days  in  confinement  without  the  filing  oi 
charges,  that  we  appreciate  his  power  to  use  strong 
language,  his  keen  wit,  his  sharp  irony,  his  overwhelm- 
ing invective.  Here  is  a  taste  of  it :  "You,  sir,  were 
simply  rioting  in  the  abuse  of  military  power,  spurn- 
ing alike  at  the  restraints  of  law  and  the  usages  of 
humanity.  I  never  imagined  before,  what  it  was  for 
an  honest  man  to  find  himself  stripped  of  all  legal 
protection ,  and  held  in  the  condition  of  an  outlaw 
Indeed,  sir,  no  language  of  mine  can  fairly  express  to 
you  how  much  I  suffered  during  those  long,  dreary, 


THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER.  39 

dismal  weeks  spent  in  your  bull-pen.  May  God  de- 
fend you  and  yours,  sir,  from  such  hard-hearted  and 
unlawful  inflictions  !  I  seemed  to  be  left  alone  and 
helpless  in  the  hands  of  a  most  unfeeling  and  vindic- 
tive man ;  that  man  had  discovered  himself  my  per- 
sonal enemy ;  he  was  armed  with  military  power ;  he 
was  capable  of  any  outrage ;  there  was  no  sense  of 
honor,  no  grace  of  manhood  in  him ;  to  be  mean  was 
his  pride,  to  be  brutal  was  his  pleasure ;  he  was  revel- 
ling in  the  license  of  assumed  impunity ;  he  allowed 
no  law,  nor  anything  else,  to  stand  between  me  and 
his  malice.  But,  much  as  I  suffered  from  you,  and 
bitter  as  is  the  remembrance  of  your  inflictions,  I  shall 
not  regret  them,  nay,  I  shall  take  comfort  of  them, 
provided  your  brutal  savageness,  as  exercised  on  me, 
should  work  something  toward  inducing  the  country 
to  scour  you  out  of  her  honorable  service." 

For  several  years  before  his  death,  which  occurred 
in  Cambridge,  Mass.,  January  16,  1886,  Mr.  Hudson's 
spirit  had  been  mellowing  and  ripening  for  heaven. 
His  entire  manner  and  spirit  had  become  changed. 
The  Ishmaelite  to  some,  he  seemed  now  an  Israelite 
to  all.  Dr.  Gannett  recalls  with  great  pleasure  and 


40        THE  SHAKESPEAREAN  INTERPRETER. 

satisfaction  his  allusion  to  the  old  Gospels,  in  which 
they  both  believed,  as  he  was  bidding  the  doctor  fare- 
well for  the  Christmas  holidays.  He  was  then  very 
feeble,  but  felt  confident  that  a  few  weeks  of  rest 
would  restore  his  accustomed  vigor.  Dr.  Gannett, 
however,  had  a  presentiment  that  his  work  was  done, 
and  that  the  evening  shadows  were  gathering  around 
him.  The  night  before  his  death,  Dr.  Gannett  received 
from  him  the  following  note,  written  with  his  own 
hand ;  probably  the  last  words  he  ever  penned.  It 
reads  as  follows :  "  I  shall  not  be  able  to  resume 
teaching  next  Tuesday.  Nor  can  I  tell  when  I  shall ; 
but  will  endeavor  to  let  you  know  in  due  time.  Dr. 
Marcy  is  to  perform  a  very  serious  surgical  operation 
upon  me.  God  help  me  !  And  God  help  us  all !" 
From  the  effects  of  the  anaesthetic,  taken  at  the  time 
of  the  operation,  which  was  a  difficult  and  delicate 
one  upon  his  throat,  Dr.  Hudson  never  rallied.  Thus 
he  went  to  the  stars ;  to  that  celestial  harmony  to 
which  his  spirit  had  been  attuned  on  earth. 

Mr.  Hudson  married  Emily  S.,  the  daughter  of  the 
late  Henry  Bright,  Esq.,  of  Northampton,  Mass.,  in 
1852.  She  still  survives  him;  as,  also,  their  only 


THE    SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER.  41 

child,  a  son,  who  is  a  merchant  in  Omaha,  Nebraska. 
Our  Alma  Mater  has  graduated  many  honored  sons. 
Some  of  them  have  worn  the  judge's  ermine ;  some 
have  walked  in  the  high  places  of  the  earth ;  have 
stood  before  kings.  They  have  worn  the  poet's  sing- 
ing robes.  The  forum  has  echoed  to  their  eloquence ; 
the  pulpit  and  the  bar.  They  have  borne  her  name 
and  her  imprint  into  the  distant  parts  of  the  earth ; 
their  feet  beautiful  upon  the  mountains,  as  they  have 
gone  the  heralds  of  the  Prince  oi  Peace.  But  when 
one  considers  the  kind  of  work  he  did,  the  quality  of 
it,  and  the  classes  for  which  it  has  been  done,  it  is 
doubtful  whether  any  of  her  most  honored  sons  have 
ever  accomplished  for  her  what  will  be  longer  remem- 
bered, or  what  will  rest  more  as  an  earthly  benedic- 
tion on  humanity,  than  HENRY  NORMAN  HUDSON.  In 
the  alcoves  of  her  library  his  volumes  will  stand  for- 
ever, his  best  memento,  his  truest  memorial,  his  most 
solid  monument ;  the  instruction,  the  inspiration  and 
delight  of  all  who  shall  resort  here.  It  is  enough  for 
him  that,  as  Virgil  guided  Dante  through  the  realms 
of  the  under-world,  bathing  his  face  with  dew,  and 
girding  his  loins  with  a  reed  of  patience,  so  he  shall 


42  THE   SHAKESPEAREAN    INTERPRETER. 

take  by  the  hand  and  lead  into  the  Shakespearean 
wonder-world,  generation  after  generation  of  young 
men  and  young  women,  as  they  stand  upon  life's 
threshold,  flushed  with  life's  morning,  seeking  to  solve 
life's  mysteries.  It  is  enough  for  her. 


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